Cover not available

Article In: Journal of Language and Politics: Online-First Articles

Security and the construction of socio-political order

ORCiD logo with link | University of Tübingen
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
In analyses of security policy, discourse has largely been used either to explain continuity or variations by pointing to security cultures and discursive constraints to policy formulation, or to critically engage with practices of othering and the construction (and reproduction) of (mostly national) identities. I argue that we need to pay more attention to the performativity of security discourse in the construction of socio-political orders through the articulation of antagonistic frontiers and discursive nodal points. The process of ‘securitisation’ may thus be reconceptualised as a practice engaged in establishing an antagonistic frontier linked to the articulation of a chain of equivalence that fills socio-political order with governmental institutions. As an illustration, I provide a brief analysis of debates within the EU about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in which articulations of security serve to construct different ‘Europes’ as referent objects tied to different conceptions of the essential pillars of European order.
Article outline
  • 1.Discourse and security
  • 2.Security and political order
  • 3.Securitisation and hegemony
  • 4.Ukraine and Europe
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (81)
References
Adamides, Constantinos. 2020. Securitization and Desecuritization Processes in Protracted Conflicts: The Case of Cyprus. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aggestam, Lisbeth. 2008. “Introduction: Ethical Power Europe?” International Affairs 84 (1): 1–11. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Albert, Mathias, David Jacobson, and Yosef Lapid. 2001. Identities, Borders, Orders. Minnesota, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ashley, Richard K. 1988. “Untying the Sovereign State”. Millennium — Journal of International Studies 17 (2): 227–62. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aydın-Düzgit, Senem, Bahar Rumelili, and Alp Eren Topal. 2022. “Challenging Anti-Western Historical Myths in Populist Discourse: Re-Visiting Ottoman Empire–Europe Interaction during the 19th Century”. European Journal of International Relations 28 (3): 513–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bigo, Didier. 2002. “Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease”. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 27(supplement): 63–92. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bigo, Didier, Sergio Carrera, Elspeth Guild, and R. B. J. Walker. 2008. “The Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security: The Mid-Term Report of the CHALLENGE Project”. International Social Science Journal 59 (192): 283–308. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bonacker, Thorsten, and Werner Distler. 2021. “Securitisation in World Politics: The Conflict on the Self-Determination of East Timor at the United Nations”. International Quarterly for Asian Studies 52 (1–2): 1–2.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Börzel, Tanja A. 2023. “European Integration and the War in Ukraine: Just Another Crisis?” Journal of Common Market Studies 61 (Annual Review Issue): 14–30. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Broecker, Hannah. 2022. Securitisation as Hegemonic Discourse Formation: An Integrative Model. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burke, Anthony. 2002. “Aporias of Security”. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 27 (1): 1–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry, Ole Wæver, and Jaap Wilde. 1998. Security: A New Framework of Analysis. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Campbell, David. 1992. Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cebeci, Münevver. 2019. Deconstructing ‘Ideal Power Europe’. Lanham, MD: Lexington.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coaffee, Jon. 2023. “Discipline, Morality and the Façade of Localism in Action: The War on Terror and the Regulation of UK Community Resilience”. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 72: 100372. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Connolly, William E. 1991. Identity\Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diez, Thomas. 1999. “Constructing Threat, Constructing Political Order: On the Legitimisation of an Economic Community in Western Europe”. Journal of International Relations and Development 2 (1): 29–49.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. “Europe as a Discursive Battleground”. Cooperation and Conflict 36 (1): 5–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “Europe’s Others and the Return of Geopolitics”. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 17 (2): 319–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. “Constructing the Self and Changing Others: Reconsidering ‘Normative Power Europe’”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 33 (3): 613–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diez, Thomas, Franziskus von Lucke, and Zehra Wellmann. 2016. The Securitisation of Climate Change: Actors, Processes and Consequences. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dreyer, Jakob, and Minda Holm. 2025. “Transformative securitization: Rethinking the Copenhagen School in light of COVID-19, climate change, and the war in Ukraine”. Cooperation and Conflict 60 (4): 1028–1053. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fiala, Petr. 2025. ‘Speech by Prime Minister Petr Fiala on the Current International Situation’. February 24. [URL]
Foucault, Michel. 2007. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978. Translated by Graham Burchell. Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Freudlsperger, Christian, and Frank Schimmelfennig. 2023. “Rebordering Europe in the Ukraine War: Community Building without Capacity Building”. West European Politics 46 (5): 843–71. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gaufman, Elizaveta. 2015. “Memory, Media, and Securitization: Russian Media Framing of the Ukrainian Crisis”. Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 1 (1): 141–74.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Genini, Davide. 2025. “How the War in Ukraine Has Transformed the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy”. Yearbook of European Law, yeaf003. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hansen, Lene. 2006. Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harnisch, Sebastian. 2011. “Role Theory: Operationalization of Key Concepts”. In Role Theory in International Relations. Approaches and Analyses, edited by Sebastian Harnisch, Cornelia Frank, and Hanns W. Maull, 7–15. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hintz, Lisel. 2016. “’Take It Outside!’ National Identity Contestation in the Foreign Policy Arena”. European Journal of International Relations 22 (2): 335–61. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. Identity Politics inside out: National Identity Contestation and Foreign Policy in Turkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Howarth, David. 2004. “Hegemony, Political Subjectivity, and Radical Democracy”. In Laclau: A Critical Reader, edited by Simon Critchley and Oliver Marchart, 256–276. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huysmans, Jef. 2004. “Minding Exceptions: The Politics of Insecurity and Liberal Democracy”. Contemporary Political Theory 3 (3): 321–41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Security Unbound: Enacting Democratic Limits. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Işleyen, Beste. 2015. “The European Union and Neoliberal Governmentality: Twinning in Tunisia and Egypt”. European Journal of International Relations 21 (3): 672–690. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jabri, Vivienne. 2013. “Peacebuilding, the Local and the International: A Colonial or a Postcolonial Rationality?” Peacebuilding 1 (1): 3–16. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackson, Richard. 2005. “Security, Democracy, and the Rhetoric of Counter-Terrorism”. Democracy and Security 1 (2): 147–71. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jarvis, Lee, and Michael Lister. 2010. “Stakeholder Security: The New Western Way of Counter-Terrorism?” Contemporary Politics 16 (2): 173–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jourová, Věra. 2023. “Vice-President Jourová Speech on Defending EU Values in the Time of the War”. March 27. [URL]
Kaliber, Alper. 2005. “Securing the Ground Through Securitized ‘Foreign’ Policy: The Cyprus Case”. Security Dialogue 36 (3): 319–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter J. (ed.). 1996. The Culture of National Security. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kellner, Douglas. 2004. “9/11, Spectacles of Terror, and Media Manipulation: A Critique of Jihadist and Bush Media Politics”. Critical Discourse Studies 1 (1): 41–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kratochvíl, Petr, and Míla O’Sullivan. 2023. “A War like No Other: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine as a War on Gender Order”. European Security 32 (3): 347–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lentner, Howard H. 2005. “Hegemony and Autonomy”. Political Studies 53 (4): 735–52. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leyen, Ursula von der. 2024. “Speech by President von Der Leyen at the European Parliament Plenary on the Need for Unwavering EU Support for Ukraine, after Two Years of Russia’s War of Aggression against Ukraine”. June 2. [URL]
Lippmann, Walter. 1943. U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacDonald, Malcolm N., and Duncan Hunter. 2019. The Discourse of Security: Language, Illiberalism and Governmentality. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Manners, Ian. 2002. “Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?” Journal of Common Market Studies 40 (2): 235–58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maurer, Heidi, Kolja Raube, and Richard G. Whitman. 2024. “’Zeitenwende’ as Coming of Age? EU Foreign & Security Policy through War & Peace”. European Security 33 (3): 345–63. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mühlenhoff, Hanna L. 2025. “Making European Union Sovereignty: Militarism and Figurations of Sexuality in the Strategic Compass”. Journal of International Relations and Development 28 (1): 105–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nabers, Dirk, and Frank A. Stengel. 2025. “Crisis and Change in Post-Zeitenwende German Security Policy”. Politische Vierteljahresschrift 66 (1): 19–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neal, Andrew W. 2019. Security as Politics: Beyond the State of Exception. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neocleous, Mark. 2007. “Security, Liberty and the Myth of Balance: Towards a Critique of Security Politics”. Contemporary Political Theory 6 (2): 131–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neumann, Iver B. 1999. Uses of the Other: “The East” in European Identity Formation. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oddo, John. 2011. “War Legitimation Discourse: Representing ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in Four US Presidential Addresses”. Discourse & Society 22 (3): 287–314. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Orbán, Viktor. 2023. “Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ‘State of the Nation’ Address”. February 18. [URL]
Pogodda, Sandra, Oliver Richmond, Nathalie Tocci, Roger Mac Ginty, and Birte Vogel. 2014. “Assessing the Impact of EU Governmentality in Post-Conflict Countries: Pacification or Reconciliation?” European Security 23 (3): 227–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Riabchuk, Mykola. 2016. “Ukrainians as Russia’s Negative ‘Other’: History Comes Full Circle”. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 49 (1): 75–85. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rodrigo Jusué, Itoiz. 2022. “Counter-Terrorism Training ‘at Your Kitchen Table’: The Promotion of ‘CT Citizens’ and the Securitisation of Everyday Life in the UK”. Critical Studies on Terrorism 15 (2): 290–310. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rothe, Delf. 2016. Securitizing Global Warming: A Climate of Complexity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rumelili, Bahar. 2004. “Constructing Identity and Relating to Difference: Understanding the EU’s Mode of Differentiation”. Review of International Studies 30 (1): 27–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sachseder, Julia, and Saskia Stachowitsch. 2023. “Gendering EU Security Strategies: A Feminist Postcolonial Approach to the EU as a (Global) Security Actor”. European Security 32 (3): 404–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scholz, Olaf. 2022. “Regierungserklärung”. Deutscher Bundestag, Stenografischer Bericht, Plenarprotokoll 20/19, 1350–54.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shapovalova, Valentyna. 2025. “Russian Militarized Masculinity and Propaganda of the “soldier Hero” during the Full-Scale War in Ukraine”. Critical Military Studies, online first, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sikka, Tina. 2006. “The New Imperialism: Using Critical Discourse Analysis and Articulation Theory to Study George W. Bush’s Freedom Doctrine”. Global Change, Peace & Security 18 (2): 101–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simone, Maria A. 2009. “Give Me Liberty and Give Me Surveillance: A Case Study of the US Government’s Discourse of Surveillance”. Critical Discourse Studies 6 (1): 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steinmeier, Frank-Walter. 2024. “There Has Never Been a More Important Time to Fight for Europe”. June 21. [URL]
Stengel, Frank A. 2019. “Securitization as Discursive (Re)Articulation: Explaining the Relative Effectiveness of Threat Construction”. New Political Science 41 (2): 294–312. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stritzel, Holger. 2021. “(Re)Reading Afghanistan through the Lens of Securitisation Theory”. International Quarterly for Asian Studies 52 (1–2): 99–111.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Telò, Mario. 2006. Europe: A Civilian Power? Basingstoke: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsoukala, Anastassia. 2006. “Democracy in the Light of Security: British and French Political Discourses on Domestic Counter-Terrorism Policies”. Political Studies 54 (3): 607–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tulumello, Simone. 2021. “Agonistic Security: Transcending (de/Re)Constructive Divides in Critical Security Studies”. Security Dialogue 52 (4): 325–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Houtum, Henk, and Ton Van Naerssen. 2002. “Bordering, Ordering and Othering”. Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geografie 93 (2): 125–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vuori, Juha A. 2011. How To Do Security with Words: A Grammar of Securitisation in the People’s Republic of China. Turku: University of Turku.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wæver, Ole. 1995. “Securitization and Desecuritization”. In On Security, edited by Ronnie D. Lipschutz, 46–86. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, R. B. J. 2006. “Lines of Insecurity: International, Imperial, Exceptional”. Security Dialogue 37 (1): 65–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1993. Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walters, William. 2006. “Border/Control”. European Journal of Social Theory 9 (2): 187–203. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wrange, Jana. 2026. “Strategic Autonomy: A ‘Quantum Leap Forward’ on European Total Defence?” European Journal of International Security, online first, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yesil, Bilge. 2006. “Watching Ourselves: Video Surveillance, Urban Space and Self-Responsibilization”. Cultural Studies 20 (4–5): 400–416. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue